


Something's Gotta Give

by Shuggins



Series: Heartaches By The Numbers [3]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Continuation of prior works, F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, Not Beta Read, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, Sexuality Crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 10:44:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20172943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shuggins/pseuds/Shuggins
Summary: She can’t tell her the truth, she can’t tell her that’s she’s spent the last few weeks trying to deal with the fact that she has a crush on Eleven, she can’t tell her that’s she’s been lying awake at night thinking about running her fingers through the brunette’s hair and wondering what it felt like to kiss her and hating herself for feeling like this and wanting it.But she couldn’t lie to her either, so Max decided to gamble with a half-truth.





	Something's Gotta Give

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the song Something’s Gotta Give by Bing Crosby
> 
> Not required but recommended you read the first two installments before you read this one, I'm probably gonna compile all these into one fic once i finish the last two, just to avoid clutter.

El has never been very good with vocalizing her emotions. It has been an endless source of frustration for her ever since she escaped the lab, when all she can do is helplessly stare at someone when she just can’t understand what they just said or can’t describe what she’s feeling. Despite this, El’s illiteracy and lack of vocabulary didn’t make her unintelligent, and what she lacked in vocabulary and charisma she made up for by being perceptive. 

That’s how she’s noticed Max has been acting strange lately. At first it was small things like breaking eye contact quickly as if she had been caught doing something wrong. But now she’s been stuttering over words when it’s just the two of them alone together, something the usually confident and self-assured girl never had an issue with before. So why is she acting so strange now?

El was mulling over this as the two girls watched tv in the cabin. Max originally came over to teach El how to skateboard, but they quickly abandoned that idea after El steadfastly refused to let go of Max’s arms so she could balance on her own, and when she finally did her shaking legs did little but just stand on the board and beg Max to grab her arms again so she could get off. 

So now they were sitting in comfortable silence together with Max on the floor and El on the couch. El wanted to ask Max what was wrong, but she wasn’t sure how to bring it up. She was worried about her; she was her friend, her best friend. Was it something Eleven did? This has only started happening over the last couple of weeks. 

“Max…” El started, the word escaping before her brain could calculate the risk of what she was about to ask.

“Mm?” Max hummed as she kept her attention fixed on the screen. 

“Are you mad at me?” 

Max stiffened a bit before turning towards El and looking up at her.

“…No, why would you think that?” her face was scrunched up in confusion.

“You have been…weird with me.” El persisted, she was sure there was something wrong with Max, now her biggest challenge was accurately conveying her feelings with her limited vocabulary.

“What are you talking about?” Max said with a noticeably forced chuckle.

“You’ve been acting different; you won’t talk much to me. Did I do something wrong?”

Max crawled up on the couch and sat cross-legged across from El as she grabbed her hands. 

“No, you haven’t done anything wrong E-“

“Then why do you act differently?! You have, friends don’t lie!” El exclaimed, these thoughts have been bouncing around in her head all day and now she just wanted an answer.

Max shrank back, her eyes going wide. She’s been had. She thought she had been doing a good job hiding her feelings, but El was smarter than she thought. But she can’t tell her the truth, she can’t tell her that’s she’s spent the last few weeks trying to deal with the fact that she has a crush on Eleven, she can’t tell her that’s she’s been lying awake at night thinking about running her fingers through the brunette’s hair and wondering what it felt like to kiss her and hating herself for feeling like this and wanting it. 

But she couldn’t lie to her either, so Max decided to gamble with a half-truth.

“I’m sorry, it’s not about you, really. But I’ve had something on my mind lately.” She let go of El’s hands, that familiar black feeling of shame swirled in her chest. She’s lying, it’s about her it’s all been about her.  
El was glaring at her with those searching eyes, still not convinced.

“Uh…do you know what a queer is?” Max’s voice cracked awkwardly as she said the last word, as if she had to physically dislodge it from her throat in order to speak it.

El’s hard expression softened, she had heard the phrase before but like many others she heard, it was lost in a vast cloud of words that were merely sounds without meaning. It had some meaning, she knew that. The first time she had heard it was when the 6 of them were heading to Mike’s house one Saturday morning. Lucas had taken a tumble off his bike and was sat on the sidewalk clutching his knee that had begun to bleed. 

“Aww, do ya need me to kiss it better?” Dustin had said, making obnoxious kissy noises as he leaned in to seemingly do just that until Lucas pushed his head to the side with a hearty chuckle, his pain forgotten.

“Knock it off, you would want to kiss it you queer.” Lucas laughed. The word was clearly an insult, judging by his tone but spoken with no real malice. It sent Dustin and Mike into a fit of giggles as they both helped Lucas up. 

Eleven hadn’t bothered then to ask them what queer meant, simply storing the word in that vague cloud hoping it would come back down for El to remember when she was flipping through her dog-eared dictionary.

“Not really…” El said, her stony expression now replaced by her more common one of confusion and deep thought.  
Max nodded, “A queer is someone who is attracted to the same gender. Like, instead of wanting to date girls a guy queer will want to date other guys and a girl queer will wanna date other girls. They’re also called gays and lesbians, for guys and girls respectively” Max said, she was surprised she managed to describe it so clearly without fumbling her words, her eyes stayed glued to El’s face, scanning it for a reaction. El’s eyebrows went up, in her usual expression of surprise.

“People can do that?” She asked, El’s expression was that of mild shock and intrigue, but no malice or disgust, at least, not yet. Max relaxed a bit, she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding.

“It’s not something you really do, you’re just kinda born with it, I think. Like how you were born with brown hair and I was born with red hair. Most people are born normal, but some are born queers. And they don’t really notice till they get to the age where they want to start dating other people.” 

These words were a bit harder to get out, Max was walking a fine line between explaining same-sex attraction and explaining sex itself, which is an entirely different talk she in no way felt qualified to have, of that she was sure. 

El nodded slowly, her eyes drifting down, deep in thought. After a moment he eyes snapped back to Max’s 

“If it’s just something people are born with then how come we haven’t seen any queer people around town then?” El asked, almost accusatorily. As if this was all an elaborate ruse to distract El from what’s really been bothering Max.

“We probably have, El.” Max answered dryly. 

“I mean queer people don’t look different from normal people, In the cities they dress differently and sometimes you can tell who’s a queer or not there, but not here in Hawkins-“

“Why not here?” El interrupted, still fascinated

“Well, since being a queer is kinda rare there aren’t a lot of them, and the few ones that are usually go to the big cities ‘cuz that’s where all the other queers are. Like New York and Los Angeles.

“Why do they go to the cities?” El interrupted, once more.

“If you stop interrupting me, I’ll tell ya.” Max laughed, the tension had all but faded from the room. El’s anger forgotten for the moment as she leaned back and pulled two pinched fingers across her lips in a zipping motion before smiling, probably something she had learned from tv  
“Queers usually live in cities because city people tend to not mind them much. Uhm…a lot of people don’t like queers, especially in the small towns. A lot of people hate them actually. In the cities it’s safer because the queers all got each other and city people at least tolerate them, but out here in small places like Hawkins, if someone was revealed to be a queer, there would be some people in town who would hate them, they might even hurt them. There are probably some queers living here. Not a lot but a few, but I doubt we’ll ever know for sure, small town queers have to hide it, or else they could in trouble, or get hurt.” Max sighed and leaned back, a gesture that was meant to be something like “Alright! out with your questions.”

El’s eyebrows furrowed in deep thought.

“But I don’t understand. What do queers have to do with you acting different…” She trailed off, 

Max could almost see the cogs turning in El’s brain. The silence and the inevitable conclusion of Max’s education session made the atmosphere tense once more and Max wished she could walk away from this fire she had just started, El was no fool and when those hazelnut eyes looked back up at her she instantly knew that El had figured it out. Max suddenly felt like she was a deer caught in headlights, she now wished that she had just lied about the whole thing and said that Billy or her Dad were giving her a hard time at home. She wanted to get up, take her skateboard and go home. Hoping she would wake up the next morning and this would all be done with, maybe El wouldn’t want to be near her anymore, maybe she’d tell Mike and then he’d tell the others and none of them would want to be around her anymore. she didn’t care, just as long as she could get away from El and those eyes that felt like they were looking into her soul, and maybe even disgusted by what they saw.

After a silence that only lasted a few seconds but to Max felt like an eternity, El spoke once more.

“Are you…a queer?” She whispered, leaning in. Her expression was not that of disgust or curiosity, but one of genuine concern.

Max took a shuddering breath; her throat was tight. She now looked down at the couch, unable to bear looking at Eleven anymore.

“Uhm…yeah…I think I am” 

Max’s hands were clutching at the ends of her shorts, staring at them intently. She now was well aware of the breath she was holding, afraid that if she breathed out, she’d burst into tears. She saw El’s hands reach out and dislodge Max’s own from her shorts, she clutched onto them but still didn’t dare to look up or exhale. 

“Max…breathe.” El whispered.

Max finally let out a shaky exhale, just as she feared, the tears came rolling down her cheeks immediately after. She pulled one hand from El’s as she furiously wiped at them, embarrassed. But once El crawled up the couch and pulled Max into a hug it was all over. The tears came out full force and Max had to press her face into El’s shoulder to stifle her sobs. El held Max tightly as she cried, whispering “it’s okay” repeatedly. 

After a few minutes Max managed to compose herself enough to stop the tears pouring from her eyes, Max pulls away and El let’s her. She leans back to grab a tissue box from the table by the couch and hands it to Max. 

“It’s okay…that you are a-a…queer, I don’t hate you.” El fumbled with her words as she watched Max pluck a couple tissues from the box and blow her nose.

Max thought she would burst into tears again after that. The black void curling in her stomach eased a bit.

“Thank you, El” Max sniffled as she wiped away the last of the tears and snot from her face.

“But you can’t tell anyone, please. Not Mike, not Lucas, nobody.” Max’s tone shifted to that of deadly seriousness.

“I know they’re our friends, but I just want to tell them when I’m ready, okay?” 

El nodded, silent. she didn’t like lying to them, but she knew that sometimes there were good reasons to lie. And Max being afraid that they would hate her if they found out seemed like more than a good enough reason. She didn’t think they would, after all they’ve been through together. Would they?

“I’ve, uh. Wanted to tell you first, for a long time, that’s why I’ve been acting strange lately. I was just worried about how you’d react, and if I could even explain it properly.” Max gave a watery laugh. 

She hadn’t lied totally. She was scared of how El would react, terrified even. But the terror was more-so because she didn’t know if she would be able to handle it if El, the girl she was head over heels in love with, rejected her entirely and didn’t even want to be near her anymore.

“But I don’t understand…” El whispered, clearly in deep thought.

“You and Lucas…” 

“Yeah, for a long time I didn’t think I was a queer. I like Lucas, a lot. But not like I do other girls…I only just made that realization recently. God, I’m gonna have to break up with him soon.” Max groaned and rubbed at her temples

“What made you…realize?” El asked

Max tensed up again, and for a moment El was worried she had said something wrong

“Y-you don’t have to tell...” El stammered out. 

Max gave a dismissive wave with a shaky hand

“It’s fine, there’s this girl that goes to Hawkins middle. When I first saw her, I found myself staring at her so much, at first I thought it was just ‘cuz she was so cool and I wanted to be her friend so bad. But after a while…I realized that what I felt when I saw her, I never felt when I stared at Lucas, or any boy. That’s when I realized.” 

Max’s mouth felt dry and her eyelids fluttered. The emotional rollercoaster she had just put herself through had sapped all the energy from her.

“Are you tired?” El asked as Max yawned and rubbed at her left eye with her palm.

“Yeah, I could use a nap.” Max sighed as she stood up and stretched. It was early, on normal days she wouldn’t bother going home until Hopper came by, but she was so exhausted she didn’t know if she could handle more questions today. Max jumped a bit when El grabbed her hand and got up. She pulled Max into her bedroom and started getting the blankets and pillows in their places.

“Oh, that’s okay. I’ll just sleep on the couch…” Max mumbled. 

El continued on, as If she didn’t hear Max at all. El climbed into the bed and motioned for Max to join. Max stayed glued to the floor.

El sat up straight in the bed, looking a little hurt. Ever since the night when El had her nightmare the two of them always shared the bed when they were having sleepovers. It was a comfort that El had grown accustomed to.

“But…we always share.” 

“Yeah…But I’m a queer…” Max whispered.

El looked bewildered for a moment, then gave a loud bark of laughter that startled Max a bit.

“You’ve always been one, and we always share the bed.” El said matter-of-factly.

“You don’t mind?”

“Nothing is different, why act different?”

Max stood there for another beat, and then slowly clambered her way next to El on the bed. El looked at the door and it shut softly before she pulled the sheet over the two of them and laid down. For a moment the two girls looked at each other, El laying on her back and Max on her stomach, their noses were almost touching. The small bed forcing them to be in close proximity, but neither minded.

“Thank you” Max whispered. Her eyes fluttered closed. El turned away and stared up at the ceiling. After a few minutes she could hear that Max’s breathing had already steadied out to a rhythmic in and out that indicated she was already deep in sleep. El was almost impressed, she really was exhausted. 

El was tired as well, but words that Max had said kept bouncing around in her brain “I realized that what I felt when I saw her, I never felt when I stared at Lucas, or any boy” El looked at Max’s sleeping form, she felt that unusual feeling blossom in her chest again, like it always did when she looked at Max…never felt when I stared at any boy. El never felt that blossoming, bubbly feeling when she was with Mike, or anyone else…just Max…

El inhaled sharply and turned away, a spike of terror burned its way in her heart as she felt her reality shifting around her.

She didn’t sleep a wink.

**Author's Note:**

> stay tuned for sexuality crisis part 2: electric boogaloo
> 
> you can pull the sharing a bed trope from my cold dead hands.
> 
> leave a kudos or a comment if you liked it, I really enjoy reading your guy's feedback


End file.
